


in the blood

by somethingradiates



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: M/M, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-05
Updated: 2012-04-05
Packaged: 2017-11-03 02:19:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/376016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingradiates/pseuds/somethingradiates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>written for this prompt: "nick is literally the last grimm, which means he can't die until there is another."</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the blood

The first time Nick Burkhardt dies, it's not even a Grimm thing. 

Hell, it's hardly even a _cop_ thing. He's not on-duty; he's driving home from Monroe's -- late, too late to be out on a Saturday night, because Portland is still busy in January -- when he sees two guys taking off from a form crumpled on the ground. He pulls the Jeep over and hits the sidewalk running, phone out already, calling for backup; it's a woman on the ground, and not a young one, mid to late sixties, Hispanic, bleeding from the face but strong pulse. There's a uniform doing rounds a street over, and they're at the scene in half a minute; as soon as they're out of the car -- it's Hannah Blackledge, new, just a beat cop but a good one -- he says he's going after the guys, that he saw which direction they were going. She doesn't object. 

They aren't hard to find, especially with the hypersensitive sense of smell Nick seems to have developed in his eighteen months as a Grimm. They're going south, and they've slowed to a walk, confident that nobody saw them; he didn't have lights on the Jeep and they were far enough off that they clearly didn't see him get out. 

_Police_ , Nick shouts, _drop your weapons_ , and they take off again. They aren't quick -- two white guys, teenagers, one significantly heavier than the other, and Nick feels a flash of rage that two little punks went after a grandma. He catches the heavy one first, slams him against the wall of what looks like a bakery or coffee shop. The kid's been drinking, breathing beer-breath into Nick's face, and Nick forces him around, because even though this never really happens that often he and Hank both still carry zip-ties with them. 

"Motherfucker," the kid says to the wall, but doesn't resist while Nick ties his wrists together, "motherfucker, mother _fucker_ , Jerry -- !"

Nick has just enough time to think _shit, the other one_ , just enough time to berate himself for making a mistake so stupid that not even a rookie would make it, and it's right around the end of that thought that he hears the gun. He doesn't feel anything, not at first, and the heavy kid's wrists fall from his suddenly nerveless hands. 

"Oh fuck," the heavy one says. "Jerry, what the fuck." 

Nick falls, throws out his hands just in time to save himself a face full of concrete. Not that it matters too terribly much in the long run when he's got a bullet lodged somewhere in his chest cavity. 

"Shit," another voice says, and sounds painfully young. Nick tries to breathe. There's an unpleasant bubbling sound when he does, and his brain is very, very clear, like someone has swept and dusted and left it hospital-white and sterile. "Shit, fucking run --" 

And they do, but, Nick thinks, they aren't going to get far. This is a quiet neighborhood and a gunshot won't go unnoticed. He can hear a siren already, in fact -- Blackledge, probably, barely a block away.

He thinks, for just a second, of calling Monroe, and with rising desperation claws at his pocket to find his phone. He's laying on the ground, now, cheek pressed against the cold cement, and he presses two -- speed dial, of course Monroe is his first -- but before it rings more than once, everything blurs out. 

\--

"You got shot for thirty-two dollars," Hank says, arms folded across his chest. 

"I got shot because two punk-ass kids thought they would mug a grandma," Nick says defensively. "And plus, I'm fine now. Doesn't even hurt."

"Yeah, God bless morphine," Hank says, and pulls the hard plastic chair away from the wall, sitting in it backwards, both big hands curled around the top ridge. "You died on the table, man. I seriously thought your boy was gonna have a stroke." 

Monroe has left the hospital for the first time in twenty-one hours to go home and shower. He hasn't slept, and Nick knows exactly how pointless it is to ask him to go home and do it, because he would be reacting the exact same way if this was Monroe instead of him. 

"Well, as far as I know, I'm alive now," Nick says cheerfully. "And I can go home soon." 

"Two days," Hank corrects. "And you're on desk duty for at least two weeks." 

Nick makes a little sound of discontent in his throat but doesn't say much on the subject; he knows it's protocol but it doesn't make it any easier to swallow. One of the biggest perks of his job -- one of the reasons he loves it so much, and he does love it, even after this -- is that he's always _doing_ something. And yeah, he'll be doing things at a desk, but it won't be the same. Plus, he'll have to listen to Hank bitch about his replacement for two weeks. 

Although it'll be nice having a nine-to-five for a little while. Maybe he and Monroe can actually plan things.

"That's my cue to leave," Hank says after a moment. Nick glances at him. 

"What?"

"You're getting that dopey look on your face," his partner says. "You know. The one you get when you're thinking about the wolfman." 

Hank and Wu have taken to calling Monroe a wolfman lately, which is slightly discomfiting. It's better than Neckbeard, which Nick had shut down very quickly. 

"Mm," he says, and Hank laughs.

"See you. Get better."

"Working on it," Nick says. He's alone for a while after that, which is -- strange. He's had a steady stream of visitors; Juliette even came by with Voodoo Doughnuts (Bacon Maple Bars, because she's still awesome even if they didn't end up working out). The one constant had, unsurprisingly, been Monroe; he'd been in the waiting room for the six hours Nick was in surgery, and he'd waited until Nick woke up and was fully conscious to go home. The nurse had told Nick that he'd just sat beside his bed -- hadn't read, hadn't even really looked at him that often, had just sat there and waited. 

Nick feels like the worst person in the world, because he knows how scared Monroe must have been. Monroe hadn't said much when he woke up, just held his hand and kissed his knuckles and said against them, softly, _I love you so much_. 

\--

He sleeps for a little while, not a real sleep but a doze, and when he wakes up he aches high in his chest. Monroe is sitting next to his bed, wearing reading glasses and a flannel shirt and old, faded jeans that are tight across his thighs. They're Nick's favorites, and he wonders for a moment if Monroe grabbed them at random or not. 

"Hey," he says, a little bit hoarsely. His throat is dry, and Monroe lays down the magazine he was reading -- _People_ , because clearly there's no accounting for taste -- to grab the bottle of water off the bedside table for him.

"Would've figured you for a Pitchfork Media kind of guy," Nick says after several long drinks. 

"I'm surprised you know what Pitchfork is," Monroe sniffs, but there's a tired smile hovering around his mouth. "Also, I don't think they have a hard-copy magazine." He looks Nick over for a moment. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I got shot," Nick says, which is apparently not as funny as he thought it would be, because Monroe's face does that closed-off thing that happens when Nick almost dies. It's not a _frequent_ face, but Nick wouldn't say it was infrequent, either. 

"I'd like to hunt that little shit down," he says. 

"Yeah, tell me about it," Nick says, and reaches for one of Monroe's huge hands. Monroe obliges, running his thumb idly over Nick's knuckles. "But, I mean. Attempted murder is pretty brutal. He's seventeen, too, so I'd be surprised if they don't charge him as an adult."

"Good," Monroe says, a hint of a growl snaking into his voice. He inhales, and when he speaks again it's much calmer. "Your nurse told me you get to come home in two days."

Nick nods. 

"And she asked if you had anyone," Monroe starts, then clears his throat. "Well, no, okay, she asked if we were -- an item, and I said yes, obviously, and she asked if we lived together. Because she said you would need someone with you most of the time, just to make sure, and." 

Nick is watching him. It's not too terribly often he sees Monroe floundering for words.

"I just thought, you know. It's not like you aren't there all the time anyway, and you don't have that much stuff anymore." 

"Oh," Nick says. "Are you asking me to move in with you?" Trust Monroe to justify why he's asking before he asks. 

"Sort of," Monroe says, then says, "yeah, okay, I -- yeah." 

"Okay," Nick says simply. Monroe doesn't say anything, but when Nick squeezes his hand, he squeezes back. 

\--

The second time it happens, it's a Wesen, a Löwin. Monroe is there this time, grappling with her mate; Nick is on the floor with her, narrowly avoiding knife-sharp claws, except he's distracted for just a second by Monroe's snarl of pain and Jesus, Jesus, she's torn open the inside of his left thigh and Nick is hysterically glad he dresses to the right because there's blood _everywhere_.

Monroe snaps her neck, but it's not like that will save his Grimm, and Nick bleeds out on a dusty barn floor. 

He wakes up, though, to Monroe carrying him out of the barn, and says, "Hey, what --?"

Monroe jerks to a stop. Nick can feel his heart hammering from where he's pressed up against his chest. This is a remarkably uncomfortable position to be held in -- his head doesn't have any support and he winds an arm around Monroe's neck to steady himself. 

"You're dead," Monroe says. "You died on the floor, you've _been dead_ , Nick -- what in the fuck --"

"My leg hurts," Nick says, and takes stock for a second. She was aiming for his thigh, she had to have been, so she'd probably been actively going for the femoral artery, and he'd -- well, Monroe had said he'd died, and his legs are drenched in blood, so she had to have severed it, but he doesn't feel dizzy like he should from losing that much blood, and he doesn't feel... well, dead. 

"I think you can put me down," he says, and Monroe, very carefully, does. Nick probes at his wound with ginger fingers. 

"It's healing," he says. "I mean -- it's still there but the skin's healing already." The pain is slipping away, too, and Monroe looks a little faint.

"Oh, God," he says. 

"What," Nick says, eyes wide. "Monroe, _what_."

"Your aunt," Monroe starts, then says, "No, get in the car, I'll tell you on the way home."

"You'll tell me now --"

"I will tell you on the way home," Monroe says sharply. Nick doesn't argue, just waits for Monroe to lay down an old blanket and slips into the passenger seat. 

"Okay," Nick says, once the car is started and Monroe's pulling away from the dirt road that leads back to the barn. "So, my aunt."

"I just remember my mom telling us -- my siblings and me -- that Marie Kessler was the last Grimm," Monroe says, and Nick thinks he might be the only person that would pick up on the tremor in his voice. "So she couldn't die -- no matter how hard someone tried, the only thing that could kill her was an illness, a natural one, not a Wesen illness or a hex, so it -- cancer, of course it would be cancer, not a fucking bullet in the skull -- Nick, if you get cancer I swear to God --"

"Hold on," Nick says. "You think I'm the last Grimm?" 

"You should be dead right now," Monroe snaps. "You should be _dead_ , no one can lose that much blood."

"I know that," Nick says, and starts to say _there has to be an explanation_ , but honestly, he's given up on logic by now. He swallows and starts again. "So, you think I'm the last Grimm."

"I don't think it's a coincidence," Monroe says. "Most of the stories Wesen tell are based in fact somewhere up the line." 

"Jesus," Nick says, and passes a hand over his face. 

\--

The third and fourth times are within days of each other: on June twenty-seventh, a meth addict shoots him in the back of the head, execution-style, outside of a dingy bar, the owner of which he's serving a warrant to, and watches his head reform seconds after death. The addict is in the middle of looting his wallet and drops it as Nick turns around, spitting a bullet into his palm. 

On July second, a Hexenbeiste breathes poison into his lungs. He feels them shrivel, feels an iron band around his chest, and breathes out to feel them grow again. He is, he thinks, getting better at resurrecting himself. 

Monroe wouldn't be happy to hear him say it, though he mentions both incidents at dinner on their respective nights. Monroe makes a grumbly noise in his chest and tops off Nick's wine. Nick nudges his foot under the table, runs it up the side of Monroe's ankle and calf, and looks at him from underneath his eyelashes. 

Later, in bed -- Nick's head on Monroe's chest, Monroe's long, strong fingers carding through his hair -- Monroe says, "It could be worse."

"Mm," Nick says intelligently. "How so?"

"Well," Monroe says. "You could be dead four times by now, instead of here."

"Definitely getting the better end of the deal," Nick says agreeably, tracing a circle on Monroe's belly with his fingertip.

**Author's Note:**

> aahh ending this was hard, please do not hate me/this OP!
> 
> (also if anybody gets the title reference tell me and we can be bffs)


End file.
